


the expectation of waiting

by mousemind



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, and a whole lot of struggling with self-worth!, nonexplicit sexual situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 17:43:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5595139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousemind/pseuds/mousemind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about Jared is that he's bizarre.</p><p>The thing about Jared is that he's bizarre, and Richard sees that, and sees the way other people react to that, too. He thinks there's something about Jared that maybe should embarrass him.</p><p>Jared has nice eyes, Richard thinks instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the expectation of waiting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joycecarolnotes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joycecarolnotes/gifts).



> Hey, genyys! This is for you! Why? For no particular reason, other than I very much appreciate your work, and thought this'd hit some of your favorite Richard/Jared buttons. I meant to finish it for the holidays but it got very lengthy and out of hand, so... Happy New Year?

"Do you like Gabe?" Bighead asks one day on their walk home from high school. The snow has increased from a pleasant flurry to coming down in thick, uncomfortable sheets in the last six or so minutes, and Richard keeps brushing accumulated snow off his coat.

"Yeah, he's cool," Richard says somewhat distractedly. _Gabe with the nice eyes_ , is a sentence that appears in his mind, unbidden, almost accidentally unearthed.

"Nah, I mean, do you _like_ Gabe," Bighead continues, in that same completely nonchalant, breezy way he might ask "do you want pizza" or "can I copy your calc homework again?" Richard stops dead in his tracks, fat snowflakes drifting into his face and hair and eyes.

"Why would you ask that?" Richard says. Bighead stops too, and shrugs. 

"It's not a big deal if you do," he says. He wipes snow off his backpack. "Gabe's cool."

"I don't," Richard replies, perhaps a little too quickly. He starts walking again, and Bighead trails amicably behind. They do their homework and watch a few episodes of _X Files_ and don't talk about it anymore.

The thing is, Richard doesn't really like Gabe. Not in that way. But when he thinks about him sort of part-and-parcel -- the soft voice, the long legs, the freckles, the nice eyes -- there is something in what Bighead said that strikes a little too close to home. 

That same week, across a country, Donald overhears the boy he very much wants to call his boyfriend but more often than not calls "Lou" (because Donald hates to make anyone feel uncomfortable or pressured). He's talking with another classmate, and Donald hangs back, just around the corner, and listens. 

"Are you gonna invite Donald?"

"I dunno," Lou drawls, with a yawn. "It's a lot of extra work. You know?" 

"Yeah, but isn't he gonna be offended when he finds out you invited all your friends upstate for the holidays and not him?" 

"Please," Lou says, "You could kick Donald in the head and he'd still say 'thank you.'" 

Donald's heart thuds in his chest. He is familiar with feeling unwanted, but this is sharp and frightening in a new way. Donald is afraid he could have loved Lou. Not that he _does_ , necessarily. But he could have, and he would have gladly dedicated himself to anything Lou needed, plus the things Lou didn't even know he wanted. _You're foolish_ , Donald thinks to himself. But another insistent part of him thinks it would be so easy to forgive Lou, and just hold his hand, and then maybe, someday, he would realize Donald deserves love.

Donald doesn't get to choose what to do, as Lou effectively breaks up with him just before Christmas.

\-----

The thing about Jared is that he's bizarre.

The thing about Jared is that he's bizarre, and Richard sees that, and sees the way other people react to that, too. He thinks there's something about Jared that maybe should embarrass him.

_Jared has nice eyes_ , Richard thinks instead.

Which is strange, because Richard doesn't do a lot of thinking about how other people look at all. But instead Richard thinks, _I also like his wrists_ , and then winces, because that's not the sort of thought normal people harbor about their co-workers. 

Once, one of his girlfriends said, "you know, you don't have to just... lay there."

And Richard had thought he'd been doing a pretty good job, overall. But she looks down at him with a pinched, almost disappointed expression, and Richard instantly feels mired in shame and distrust, like pinpricks all over his skin. He has to look away.

"Sorry," he had muttered into the bedsheets. "I'll, um. Try." 

As if he hadn't been trying very, very hard, with a great deal of stomach-churning self-awareness of his dry lips and bony hips and chest dusted with uneven patches of light hair.

_Jared wouldn't say something like that_ , Richard reasons idly. _Jared would like me just for trying_.

Jared whistles as he takes used grinds out of the coffee pot, and cheerfully mops up someone else's mess on the counter.

Objectively, Jared is bizarre.

Also, Jared has nice eyes.

\-----

"Richard," Jared placates, almost catching Richard's arm as he paces in front of him, but thinking better of it just at the last moment. "Listen."

"It isn't fair," Richard explodes, threading his fingers into his mess of hair and tugging hard. "I can't do anything right by you guys."

"That isn't true."

"It is true!" Richard says, and hits his fist a little too hard into his own hip and then winces. It's terribly endearing, which Jared tries not to think about as he focuses all his well-intentioned concern on his boss. 

"Anything I do or try gets shot down. And when I don't do anything - because I don't wanna deal with that same bullshit _again_ \- people want to know what brilliant idea I'm gonna pull out at the last minute to save our asses. Well, funding from Russ was my idea. What's the alternative?" 

Jared thinks listing wiser alternatives is not what Richard is actually asking for in this moment, so he just nods sympathetically. Richard exhales in a short huff and collapses onto the couch. He pulls his hoodie up over his eyes and slumps over in a boneless hunch of defeat.

"I don't want to go bankrupt. I don't want to lose Pied Piper. I don't want to sell out to Gavin fucking Belson." 

There's a moment where Jared calculates the appropriate distance to sit from Richard on the couch, and just as he's about to do so, Richard speaks again, tiny, and strained,

"I shouldn't be allowed to do this."

When Jared sits this time, he disregards caution and slides in beside Richard, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"Richard, you are every inch the CEO we need," Jared says gently. "I admire you so much. I hope it doesn't embarrass you to hear me say that." 

"Don't lie to me," Richard huffs, his face mostly obscured but his voice still quite tellingly pinched, unhappy.

"I wouldn't know how to," Jared replies, vaguely aware that it's a funny thing to say but mostly thoroughly earnest. Richard shakes a little, though, and Jared realizes he's laughing. 

"True," Richard concedes. "But it doesn't count."

"Why?"

"Because you - "

And Richard's sentence ends there, quite abruptly. A strange sort of fear and alertness crackles in the air between them, and Richard shifts slightly away. 

"I what?" Jared persists, lightly.

"Nothing," Richard answers.

"I love you?" Jared supplies, and Richard snaps to face him with a look that Jared can only describe as agonized. His skin has gone pale - _green_ , even - eyes wide as saucers.

"I do," Jared continues. He feels a strangely pleasant lightheadedness crawl up the back of his head and into his eyes, which are suddenly a bit cloudy with not-unhappy tears. 

Richard pushes back his hood.

"Really," he says, less of a question than a challenge - a chance for Jared to admit to some sick joke or prank or morale-boosting corporate exercise. "You can't -- you're not kidding." 

"I wouldn't know how to," Jared says again, and runs a finger just under the nervous jut of Richard's jaw. Richard gratefully, almost instinctively, leans into his touch. Jared closes the space between them with uncharacteristic bravery, and sweet, brilliant Richard gasps into Jared's mouth. 

\----- 

"Jared, Jared, wait," Richard insists between short, panting breaths. "Um. Before we... um."

Jared removes his mouth from the soft skin just above Richard's collar bone.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm - uh," Richard looks away from Jared's intensely earnest, doting gaze. There's something profoundly enticing about the way he looks up at him from just beneath Richard, round eyes expressive but hazy with lust. 

"I'm not good at this," he finishes. "Just to warn you." 

Jared's nose crinkles sort of childishly. It's sweet, but it makes Richard blush, feeling small and scrutinized under Jared's apparent amusement.

"Why should that matter?" Jared asks sincerely. "Richard, I am so fortunate just to - "

He doesn't finish that sentence, and instead dips down and presses kisses along Richard's side, down, down...

\----- 

Richard is wanted.

Richard feels it even when he isn't looking, hot on the back of his neck; the inexplicable but impossible to ignore sensation of knowing someone is staring at you from across the room. 

It alights something unfamiliar and a little frightening inside of him. It's just a stupid college party. He knows that. He didn't even want to be here. And yet.

And yet, there is a man across the room who hasn't taken his eyes off Richard all night. Richard laughs, half-listening, to someone else's stupid joke. The burning feeling on his neck intensifies. _Do I look good when I laugh_? Richard wonders. Then, almost with a self-loathing wince, he takes a too-long gulp of cheap alcohol.

He'd gone on two dates with a girl, Elise, who'd taken Richard's hand and jerked it up into the space between them. She pulled a face, scrutinizing Richard's chewed up nails and cuticles. "This is horrible," she chastised. "Don't you give a shit about how you look?"

_No_ , Richard had thought, somewhat mortified, both at her admonishment and his lack of awareness. _I don't._

But here, now, in this moment, maybe he does. He sits into his hip, thinks maybe if he stops chewing his bottom lip and smiles politely instead, he may look better.

Not long after, Richard turns around, directly into the man who'd been eyeing him all night.

"Uh," Richard stammers as he recoils. "Hey."

What Richard hadn't noticed from afar is that the man is handsome, yes, but also deeply intoxicated. He puts a hand on Richard's shoulder with a heavy, graceless clap.

"You saw me looking, hm?" 

Richard nods stutteringly.

"Yeah," Richard says, so quiet it's almost lost among the hum and clatter of people talking, interacting, in the too-small off campus house.

"Do you like that? That I was looking?" 

His voice is heavy with something unfamiliar to Richard. He has dark eyes, which slide in and out of focus, mostly locked on Richard's mouth.

"Yeah," Richard answers, strangely emboldened. He is vaguely aware that they're very much in public, and that he very much doesn't care. 

"Yeah," the man parrots, just the way Richard had, not quite mockingly but full of amusement. He puts a hand beneath Richard's jaw, fingers curling up in a strangely possessive way that Richard instinctually likes.

"You're sweet," the man coos, and he presses his other thumb to Richard's lower lip. Intoxicated, both from the drinks and from the white-hot excitement, Richard whimpers. The thumb slides into his mouth for a second, and Richard thinks, _Maybe I want this. Maybe this is what I'm good at_.

The man chuckles, low and rumbling in his chest.  

"That's good, you're good," he says, and the praise makes Richard hot and dizzy. "You'd probably beg for it, huh?" 

Richard pulls away, stumbling a bit, acutely aware of the nausea that washes over him in cold, sharp waves. The man still watches him, hungry, impassive. Frightening.

"Sorry, sorry," Richard mutters, straightening his clothing. "I. Sorry." 

Richard makes a beeline for the door. The man watches him leave, but makes no move to pursue. It's a strangely warm night for the middle of December in California, which Richard dimly is thankful for as he stops three separate times to throw up on his walk back to his dorm room.

It isn't until years later that Richard recognizes that same want, same interest, in the way Jared watches him from across a room. What's unnerving to Richard is that no matter what he does, how he looks, how long he takes to make any decision at all, Jared still watches with that same, patient, unwavering devotion.

What's also unnerving is that Richard firmly does not mind.

\-----

"Richard? You're sitting in the dark."

"I know."

"Would you like me to turn on a lamp?"

"No. Thanks, Jared."

A small pause. Jared shifts from foot to foot, but doesn't leave the room.

"Richard, I believe you're crying."

"Uh-huh."

Jared finally takes the plunge and steps fully into the quiet, darkened den. Richard is sat at the far end of the central wooden table, but Jared can't make much else out.

"Is there something we should talk about," Jared asks gently.

"Um," Richard manages, and his voice is strained and tight around something he clearly doesn't know how to say, so Jared carefully walks in and sits opposite him at the corner of the table. Jared can see, even in the dim light, Richard chewing nervously at his fingers, face still wet with tears.

"Do you regret what we did last week?"

"No," Richard answers thoughtfully, truthfully. "I'm really glad we..." 

"Me too," Jared supplies helpfully, so that Richard doesn't have to politely conjure up the right words to use. Richard looks not quite past Jared, lost in some train of thought. It's unusual - Richard deeply concentrated but free of the wild, kinetic scramble-just-below-the-surface so characteristic of his usual thought. 

"You said you loved me," Richard says at length, and there's a thoughtful measuredness to his words.

"Yes," Jared answers. 

"Did you really mean that?"

"Yes," Jared says again. "Absolutely."

Richard exhales.

"I don't think I've ever been in love before."

"Me neither," Jared replies earnestly. "There were times I thought I might have been. But I realize now, when I think about you, nothing even came close."

Richard flushes red and looks away, but he's smiling. He exhales deeply, and something passing by the window illuminates his eyes in a brilliant strip of light. Jared is taken aback by something ponderous and sad in Richard's expression. At length, Richard finally asks,

"How can you be sure what love feels like?" 

Jared touches Richard's arm in a gentle, careful way. Richard looks up at him and, for what feels like the thousandth time, Jared is surprised by how startlingly handsome he finds Richard.

"It will be impossible to miss," Jared answers. 

"You love me," Richard says, and it isn't a question so much as a slightly bewildered statement of facts.

"Very much." 

"What if I don't know how I feel?" Richard asks, not defensive but deeply, unmistakably sad. "What if I don't like enough of myself to want to, um, share it?" 

"That's all right. You will."

"It could take a while."

"Maybe it could."

"And you could have moved on by then."

"I won't," Jared assures, and of this he really is certain.

"You don't know that," Richard counters, his voice thin, wavering.

Jared leans in and presses a dry, chaste kiss to the side of his face, just below his temple. Richard huffs what might be a small laugh, or something else they wouldn't want to acknowledge, anyway. Jared, perhaps selfishly, pushes a wayward tuft of hair behind Richard's ear and relishes the feeling of being so close. He tries to memorize the moment as best he can.

"I do know," Jared says. "It would be impossible." 

He wants terribly to kiss Richard again, so instead he does the wise thing and leaves the room.

\-----

"Fuck, Donnie. That feels so good."

"Oh. Please don't call me that."

Henry goes back to sucking a bruise into the side of Donald's neck.

 "Henry?" Donald asks, and resents the pleading quality that slips into his voice. "Did you - ?" 

"Turn over, Donnie."

"Did you hear me," Donald asks one more time, but Henry has busied himself with something else. He'll have to see Henry again tomorrow at the conference. He hopes they won't have to speak.

Maybe Donald is done with taking men home from bars.

\----- 

Richard plods sleepily to the bathroom in the middle of the night. He pulls the door open to reveal Jared, leaning over the sink towards the small, cloudy mirror that hangs above it.

"Oh, shit," Richard says, turning on his heel. "Sorry. I didn't know you were in here." 

"That's all right," Jared calls back. "Do you - "

"No, no, I'm fine," Richard chatters as he leaves. "You can - "

It occurs to Richard that it's easily three in the morning. When he returns to the now-open doorway, Jared is looking back at him, holding a wad of paper towel to his forehead.

"You're here," Richard says, admittedly lamely. 

"I fell asleep working," Jared says, clearly mortified. "I'm so sorry. I'm on my way out."

When he adjusts the paper towel, it comes away bright red.

"Jesus _fuck_ ," Richard winces. "Your head." 

Jared's face twists into a pained expression Richard doesn't fully recognize.

"I was trying to leave in the dark. I fell in the driveway." Jared seemingly re-centers with a deep breath. "I'm really embarrassed."

"Do you need help?" Richard asks instinctively, before realizing he's fully unequipped to help, either way.

"You all don't have some sort of antiseptic, do you?" 

"I... really don't think so."

Jared nods, resolutely. 

"Then thank you, no," Jared says kindly. "I'll be fine."

Despite the free pass, Richard steps definitively into the bathroom. He doesn't say a word, and neither does Jared, but Richard hangs back and watches him finish cleaning the shallow wound. There's a strange, unspoken sense of camaraderie. Something strangely domestic, easy, about sharing the small space in silence.

"There is something you could do for me, if you wanted," Jared suggests once the bleeding seems to have stopped and the sink has been wiped clean. 

"Hm?"

"You could check to make sure I'm not concussed."

Richard shoves his hands nervously into the pockets of his hoodie. 

"Yeah," he concedes. "Sure."

Then, after a moment,

"How?"

"Do you have a flashlight?"

"I'm not sure," Richard says, looking around uselessly, like something might just appear. "Maybe." 

"You can use my phone," Jared proposes, pulling it from his back pocket. "Can you close the door and turn off the lights?"

Richard does so, feeling suddenly nervous. 

"Okay," comes Jared's mild, attentive voice. "Whenever you're ready, shine the flashlight towards me and look at my eyes."

He does so, Jared appearing more pallid and ghost-like than ever in the harsh glow. Richard watches his pupils dilate, and feels relief weigh down the nervous hunch of his shoulders. 

"Am I okay?" Jared asks. 

"You're okay," Richard replies, right back into Jared's too-close face, clean-shaven and open and thoughtful. 

"Do you want to turn on the lights," Jared inquires, just as Richard loudly stammers, 

"You shouldn't drive home tonight." 

There is a quiet, tense moment, broken by Jared evenly, diplomatically asking,

"Where would I stay?" 

"My bed," Richard answers, just as quickly.

"There aren't any bandaids in this house," Jared says in a tight voice, his well-practiced guarded veneer cracking the longer he stands near Richard.

"Would you let me drive your car?" Richard asks, and Jared wordlessly hands him his keys.

\-----

They'd picked up bandaids an hour ago. Richard had fumblingly helped Jared apply two across the small slope of his brow in Jared's tiny car in the parking lot of the CVS. 

"There's something I like about driving at night," Richard had mused aloud as he turned onto the main thoroughfare again.

"Me too," Jared replied. Then, after a beat, "You can, if you'd like." 

"Hm?" Richard asked, barely looking askance at Jared, whose focus was somewhere out the passenger window.

"Keep driving."

So he does.

\-----

It's five a.m. and the sun is rising as they pass signs welcoming them into San Mateo, California.

Richard has no idea what he's doing, but Jared seems not to mind at all. They've barely spoken, but there's something shared - palpable - in their companionable silence. A comfort in the dark and quiet compared to the usual bustle, a thrill in the escape, a strange acceptance that they are uncommonly relaxed and happy when together.

"I guess," Richard starts, and his voice is a bit crackly from disuse. "I guess I don't understand why you love me."

"There's a lot to love," Jared replies unflinchingly, like he'd had that answer prepared for years. 

"No, there's not." Richard keeps his eyes on the road ahead, but feels Jared's focus shift to him, attentive, participatory. "I mean yeah, Jared, I know I'm not like, a fucking monster - "

"Richard, I have let a lot of people treat me very terribly in my life," Jared says. "I can recognize mistakes now. You aren't one." 

Richard makes a turn that starts them heading home.

"I forgot my stupid wallet," Richard says after a few minutes.

"Is that a problem?"

"I was going to say, let's get breakfast. And then I was going to pay for it."

Jared chuckles.

"That's sweet of you, Richard." 

In a mile or so, Jared points to a diner up ahead. 

"Hey," Jared says nonchalantly, a small smile coloring his words warm, gentle, easy, "Let's get breakfast. My treat."

\-----

"I will be good." Richard says with difficulty. "For you. I will be good for you."

Jared is about to step out of the car, but instead closes the door carefully, quietly, so he doesn't miss anything Richard is clearly straining to confess. The neighborhood is still quiet in the early hours of the morning, no one awake in the hostel, or likely even in the surrounding houses.

"I'm going to be nice to you. And thoughtful."

"You are," Jared tries to supply, almost reflexively, but Richard holds up a hand, and Jared bites his tongue. 

"And I won't fuck it up. We're gonna do it."

Richard turns to look at Jared, a steely, inscrutable resoluteness etched into his tired-looking face.

"I'll be able. Soon." He puts his hand on Jared's, resting on the partition between them in the car. "Wait for me."

"Absolutely," Jared says.

"Jared," Richard replies, like a sigh, like it's something he's been meaning to say for a very long time. "You have nice eyes."


End file.
